The When You're Ready Project is a community for survivors of sexual violence to share their stories and have their voices heard, finding strength in one another. When you're ready to share your story, we'll be here.

Katie

Hello Friends! My name is Katie, and welcome to the WYR Project!

I am a 22 year old living in New York (not the city, actually basically in the middle of the woods) who just graduated from college, first in the family! I have a great family, great friends, a college degree and other great things going for me.

However, there is another side of me I hide from most of the world, the demons that toy with me on a daily basis; I am a survivor of two sexual assaults.

Both of my assaults were things that although I had a nasty feeling about in my stomach and really did have an effect on me I didn’t clearly see, I didn’t quite understand were assaults. My last semester in college brought me education on the subject and after a night of drinking with friends, I confessed to a close friend I was assaulted four years ago. From there, it was a spiral down I almost did not come back from. I began to open up to a few different friends due to an incident with a Resident Assistant on campus that included him not understanding assault and understating what it was. A couple months later after sorting through some destroyed memories I managed to find, I discovered I was also raped a year after the first assault. In a matter of two months I went from a woman with no assaults to not only being a victim of one assault but also a rape.

I am still very young and am still handling it day to day. I do not claim to be healed or to be as far along in the recovery process as many others, and I think that is okay. I became a product of my assaults; a paper doll that was too easily crumpled by the world around me. However, I refuse to accept I am made of paper. I am made of steel, I am strong and not so easily broken, and so are you.

In the coming years, I have developed PTSD and am in no way healed from that. And even though it is hard to say, that is just fine. We are all survivors from our traumas and we are all fighting. I am taking this life step by step and one day can say I have healed, even if it is not now. My PTSD was added to a brewing pot of mental health issues including severe anxiety, spots of depression, borderline personality disorder, suicidal thoughts/attempts (in my past, thankfully.), as well as an eating disorder I have healed from but still haunts me. However, I refuse to allow any of these things define me as a human being, because I am so much more than the hand I have been dealt in this life.

I joined WYR to not only continue the journey to happiness but to also help others. I am a creative writer and thinker and so passionate about things I love. Spreading awareness and helping others heal as quickly become one of them. Being at such a young age and a relatively early stage to the healing process, I want to use my unique position and assaults to further this project with my fellow team and continue to support and encourage survivors to NEVER give up.

You are strong. You are valid. You are worthy. You are inspirational. Never forget that.

“Don’t be surprised, I will still rise.”-Katy Perry (not known for being inspirational, however this line of her song Rise has helped me stay strong and remember to continue fighting.)

With love, Katie

P.S. I am choosing to stay anonymous, at least for the time being. I have friends that are still very unaware of any of this. I also have not told my parents or any of my siblings/family members. I want them to learn of my experience from me when I am ready, not from the internet.